


the right thing after all

by seeingrightly



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Marriage Proposal, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 21:47:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20396647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: alexis asks ted a very important question. sort of. (no s5 spoilers)





	the right thing after all

**Author's Note:**

> title from "real love" by carly rae jepsen

Alexis isn’t great at gestures. She’s a lot better at planning than she used to be, and at followthrough, but only in certain areas, and usually those areas have to do with herself and her job. Sometimes they have to do with Ted in relation to Alexis, but, well, he wouldn’t be with her if he expected her to pull off grand gestures. Ted’s a practical guy, and he loves Alexis the way she is, and he doesn’t expect all that much to be in his apartment when he gets home, even though Alexis promised she was planning a special evening for their anniversary.

So Ted is more than a little surprised when he opens the door and it’s dark and candlelit and Alexis is actually there waiting for him among the rose petals and wine glasses and cheese spread that definitely came from her brother’s store. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d set something romantic up and then left, or started a small fire.

“Wow!” Ted says, spreading his arms. “Wow, Lex, I’m impressed. This is really, really nice.”

“What,” Alexis says, “you don’t think your successful girl boss of a girlfriend can plan an event?”

She has a small smile on her face and her nose is scrunched up and her fingers are twisting together, so she’s happy with his reaction. Ted likes to go for genuine first and teasing second.

“I know she can! I just didn’t know she does it all the way through when she’s not being paid for it.”

“Oh, well, I am thinking about taking on a few pro bono clients,” Alexis says as she steps up to Ted and winds her arms around his waist. “You’re cute enough that you might just be my first one.”

“Aw,” Ted says, unable to tell how serious Alexis is about any of it and charmed regardless.

“Let’s sit down and enjoy everything I put together,” Alexis says, shimmying in his arms in a way that’s meant to distract from the fact that she’s uncertain about something.

“Lead the way,” Ted says, because whatever it is, she doesn’t seem ready for it, and he doesn’t want to push her.

Alexis takes his hand, seeming a little more relaxed already, and leads him to cushions she’s placed next to the set up on the coffee table. She picks up the remote to his sound system and turns on some music that Ted can’t place but thinks he’s heard at Rose Apothecary before. Then she pours the wine and moves the cheese closer to Ted, watching him with an earnest look on her face as he takes a sip and then spreads some cheese onto a cracker and takes a bite.

“Mmm,” he says, a little exaggerated, nodding, and Alexis nods too, clearly relieved, and then she picks up her wineglass, not focusing on him quite so intently.

“So tell me about  _ work _ today,” Alexis says in a tone of voice that makes it clear that she won’t listen to the answer, she just needs someone else to talk for a bit.

She doesn’t eat much as she pretends poorly to listen, which means Ted doesn’t either, because he’s a little nervous about whatever she’s nervous about. He doesn’t want either of them to drink too much, since they’re not really eating, so he tries to pull her into the conversation by referencing clients she knows. It doesn’t really capture her attention but it does keep her from sipping too frequently.

“You know,  _ Ted _ ,” Alexis interrupts, which Ted is grateful for, because he was running out of anecdotes, “I think I forgot some of this nummy cheese in the fridge. Could you be the  _ biggest _ help and just run and check for me?”

“Sure,” Ted says, hoping this leads to an explanation, but knowing he’d say yes under normal circumstances anyway.

After he gets up and heads into the kitchen, he can hear Alexis get up and move around in the living room behind him. He’s expecting to find a cake, or macarons or some other kind of fancy dessert that Alexis pretends to eat, but when he opens the fridge, there’s a platter with more cheese on it, and in the middle of that a small black jewelry box.

Ted doesn’t know what to think, so he doesn’t open the box. He picks up the platter and brings it back to the living room. Alexis is kneeling, both knees planted on her cushion.

“Uh,” Ted says, very slowly, like he’s making a joke from underwater, “aren’t you supposed to be on one knee?”

“Oh,” Alexis says, waving her hands, “no, no, of course not, don’t be silly. I can’t get on one knee in this teeny little skirt!”

“Oh,” Ted says, his brain jumping straight to concerned, moving forward and outstretching one arm in case she needs help. “Did you… want to?”

“No,” Alexis says, wringing her hands. “Maybe? No.”

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Ted says.

“Open the ring box,” Alexis says, as though it’s very obvious, and maybe she’s right.

Carefully, Ted puts the platter of cheese down next to the first, kneeling on his own cushion. He opens the ring box, and it’s empty.

“I still don’t get it,” he says. “I was joking about you proposing, but then you made it seem like you were, but… now you’re not proposing?”

“Well, no,” Alexis says with a wild series of hand gestures. “Well, not exactly… I mean, I  _ am _ proposing… something. I’m proposing… that we talk  _ about _ proposing.”

“Okay,” Ted says, because she’s just looking at him, her eyes wide.

“Okay,” Alexis says to herself, sitting down more comfortably and taking Ted’s hands in her own. “Okay, Ted, I was thinking that I wanted to propose to you. Because I love you, and I want to marry you, and I want to show you how serious I am about everything this time. I mean all of it, Ted. But I was thinking about last time - well, the last two times, and what went wrong, and there were a lot of things, but I think one of the  _ big _ things was just that we didn’t talk about it. It was a total surprise to me, and we weren’t on the same page, and I reacted badly. Not that it was your fault that I reacted badly! There are lots of reasons it’s my fault that I reacted badly. But I didn’t want to put you in that position where you didn’t see it coming, you know?”

Ted knows he’s crying. It’s unfair to say that Alexis isn’t good at gestures when she knocks him off his feet like this, with her irregular moments of sharp emotional clarity. He sniffs and takes one of his hands back to wipe at his eyes.

“You know,” he says, “it  _ was _ my fault too that you reacted badly. You’re right, that catching you off guard like that was part of the problem. And you’re right that we should talk about this and make sure that we’re on the same page. So - you - you want to marry me? I know you already said it, but -”

Alexis laughs and grabs Ted’s face with both hands.

“Yes, Ted,” she says, scrunching up her nose and kissing him. “Yes, I want to marry you. Do you want to marry me?”

Ted wraps his hands around Alexis’s wrists, sniffling again.

“Yeah,” he says. “I never completely stopped wanting to. But it’s different now. I mean it in a way I couldn’t have then.”

Alexis nods and bites her lip, their foreheads bumping together, and then pressing together on purpose.

“So does this mean we’re engaged now?” Ted asks.

“No!” Alexis yelps, hitting him gently on the shoulder. “We just agreed we’re going to  _ get  _ engaged.”

“Oh, okay,” Ted says, “do you still want to propose to me?”

“It’s a  _ secret _ ,” Alexis says. “And it has to be a secret if you’re going to propose to me!”

“Okay,” Ted says slowly, “but then what if we both just assume the other is going to do the proposing and then neither of us proposes?”

“ _ Ted _ ,” Alexis says, “well one of us  _ has _ to propose now!”

“I know that!” Ted says. “But how do we know who’s doing it! Oh, I know, should we flip a coin?”

Ted starts to dig into his pocket, and Alexis groans and flops against him, rolling him almost completely off of his cushion as they both dissolve into laughter. There’s a thump from the direction of the coffee table as Alexis leans in to kiss Ted.

Then his fire alarm goes off.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @  
[coralbluenmbr5](https://twitter.com/coralbluenmbr5)


End file.
